Where Home Lies
by Ars Sanctum
Summary: Home isn't always found where one is born, nor is it always a place. This truth is made very clear to two man-made Pokemon as they escape the place of their birth into a world unknown. As the two begin to search for their respective "home", they find the world beyond their birthplace can be terrifying...and that abandoning one's origins is never as easy as it seems.


He had forgotten just how cold the steel floor was.

The entire room was white, void of personality or human nuance. Its design prioritized function - all that lay within were advanced computers and containers. Some glass, others steel. Each one full of liquid...though some contained something else.

One of those was where he had come from. A container of glass that was filled with fluid and surrounded by steel.

It was shattered now. The thick steel torn apart to break the much more fragile glass within. Clear shards had been scattered across the cold white floor, and that strange fluid poured out before the base of the container.

"Oi…"

He could feel it touch his tail…

"Oi!"

He lifted his head and blinked. His eyes had never been good, not for standard vision, but they had improved over the past few weeks. The room looked different from within the fluid - when he was able to see it. The steel covering often blocked his sight and any light from entering. He had another, superior form of sight, so it hadn't bothered him.

Still he defaulted to the standard use of his eyes, and could only barely make out the blurry sight before him. It was a tall, quadrupedal beast. Dark in coloration, though also somewhat multicolored. It had different body parts here and there, none of them seeming to truly fit the torso they were attached to.

An anomaly - something that most could never properly identify.

He was only so different.

"Get up already." The voice growled to him, or at least, he thought it growled. The beast's head was contained by an iron mask. Its eyes could barely be seen through it, but its voice bounced about the iron before escaping out. Determining the beast's sex by voice was impossible. "Don't you hear that siren?"

He did. He wasn't sure if he'd heard it since he'd consciousness and simply blocked it out, or if he only began to hear it a half-second ago...but he heard it. It blared throughout the small, white room, and was almost impossibly loud. Prolonged exposure to the sound would induce headaches. This was by design, he knew that much.

"So get up, we're lea...ving..." The beast paused as its body tensed. A common reaction to witnessing a Pokemon begin to levitate so easily. His pale body simply floated up into the air before he used his muscles to right his posture. The motion was unnatural, he knew that much.

_"__Where?"_ He understood the situation. That siren only played when intruders broke into the facility. Security was trained to suffer no ill-effects from the siren. Intruders most likely lacked that training. In time they would grow nauseous, and their ears would begin to bleed. Their mind would play tricks on them, and the siren would become a cruel cacophony of demons, mad beasts, or tortured souls. The sounds of madness and despair.

But where was it they needed to go? There was no protocol for this situation.

_"__Why?"_ had he been freed from his container. That container was the reason he had never been informed of a protocol. There had been no need - he slept through intrusions.

The beast had been surprised at first, by his motions and his manner of speech. His voice came not from his mouth - this only made it easier for the beast to hear him.

"You keep those thoughts of yours one-way, you understand?" The beast growled again, its tone a touch defensive. He cocked his head to the side, unconcerned with the beast's reaction and still confused.

_"__That doesn't answer my…"_ Another growl, and a reluctant shy. _"I will. Your thoughts do not interest me. Our situation and our orders do."_

"Situation is an intrusion. Big one. That's why I was able to come in here and wreck your container." The beast scoffed before it turned away from him to face the door. The door was in a similar state as his container - steel torn apart by unnaturally sharp claws and abnormally strong muscle. The beast's work.

"But who gives a damn about the intrusion, and to hell with orders. We're leaving the facility."

He could comprehend the notion, and yet...was that the right choice? He wasn't certain of the beast's situation - the two had never met before a minute ago - but he was aware of its existence. No doubt the same went for the beast. Thus he had more questions and concerns, but before he could announce them the beast leaped through the large hole it had torn in the door.

"Security is eventually going to make its way here. Even if the intrusion is big, the facility is stacked with staff. Cameras already saw me force myself in here - we stick around we're going to get caught again…"

_"__So?"_

"SO?!" The beast whipped its head towards him with a roar. He could hear its labored breathing from where he floated. It hadn't seemed like it exerted itself, so why…

The beast took a calming breath and shook its head. It mumbled something, but its voice was too quiet to make out through the helmet. He floated closer to the beast and watched its body with caution. He was aware of his own curiosity, and he wasn't completely clueless when it came to reading body language. If the beast showed intent to harm him he _would_ fight back.

"...We just need to leave." The debate, if one could even describe the prior exchange as such, was over. The beast began to pad down the hallway - a sight that was identical to the room they had just exited - before breaking out into a sprint.

_"__You want to."_ He kept pace with the beast, hovering alongside it. The beast didn't respond, so he continued on, _"Why do you want me to join you? We don't…"_

Even know each other's names? Hah...he had nearly said something silly. It felt like a natural thing to say, and it emphasized a true point. It would have been fine...had they names to exchange in the first place. They were known by codes or by their species. A name was supposed to be personal. Unique, at least in meaning and intent, and special. Numbers and species could never suit his idea of a "name", and so he refused to use them himself.

He imagined the beast was of a similar opinion on that front.

It stayed silent for a moment, almost as though it didn't have an answer. They continued to move down the hallway. Function over form remained true - it was a straight path.

After they'd passed a seventh set of doors, the beast gave him its answer.

"Nobody deserves to stay here." Its voice was quieter than usual, but he had never heard the beast's words clearer. They rang in his mind like they were a fundamental truth. Why…?

_"__Stop."_  
"Wait."

They both came to a halt. His second sight had detected something - curious, it usually didn't work that well unless he was in the testing room. The beast must have detected something as well, by hearing or smell, because they had spoken near in-unison.

The beast pressed its body up against the cold steel wall and tried to peer around the corner. He didn't have to - he could see just fine from behind the beast's body.

Two humans, healthy in body and mind, patrolled one of the halls. They seemed to be on alert, but given they were not in a rush towards the path he and the beast had been on, they likely did not know of the break-out.

Still, given the beast's hesitation, the path they patrolled had to be the route it wanted to take.

_"__What do we do?"_ He asked.

"Quiet!" The beast hissed. A sound and voice that would normally be high and sharp echoed out from the helmet and thus rang far louder than it normally ever would. It was no wonder, then, that the two guards paused and turned 'round.

"Hey, is that...oh shit! Come on!"

The beast growled and glared over its shoulder. "They heard us!"

_"__Of course they did."_ He said, tone even and calm as he tilted his head to the side. _"You spoke and hissed aloud."_

"I only did that because you did, you idiot!"

_"__I was only projecting my thoughts to you."_ The beast's eyes went wide, as he unknowingly finished the kill. _"Only you can hear me."_

Silence, save for the steps of the guards who fast approached the turn.

"...A-Anyway, just stay behind me." The beast's hackles rose and its tail fin flared to its full width. "I'll tear 'em apart."

The two humans at last came around the bend, so hasty in their sprint that their boots skidded against the steel floor as they forced their momentum to a halt. They were dressed in gray and black - colors that designated their role as security for the facility. Workers tended to wear white - and so position was distinct between the two.

One raised a stun gun, drawn from a holster behind his belt. The other whipped out a pokeball, which expanded in the palm of her hand to its full size.

"Y-"

Both guards were immediately flung into the ceiling- approximately twenty feet above the floor - by a force they had no hope of seeing. They hit it hard enough for a dull 'clang' to echo throughout the entire hallway, before they were ceremoniously dropped face first onto the equally hard floor below.

The beast blinked in shock at the two guards, whose bodies were splayed out before them in a disorganized heap. After the initial shock the beast turned its surprised gaze towards him, and saw that he hadn't so much as lifted a paw. His violet eyes had taken on a faint glow, but if the beast didn't know any better, it would have appeared like he hadn't done anything at all. Not a single sign of exertion or even focus.

...and the workers sometimes called _it_ a monster...

_"__Sorry."_ Was his immediate response, though his expression did not match it. _"I forgot you said you would handle them. Now, let's..."_

His second sight detected something else. Behind him, in fact, for this form of sight was not limited to a 'cone' of one hundred and twenty degrees. Range was the only limiter...and several conscious minds had just entered his range. He could see the outlines of their bodies - guards much like the ones he had just taken out.

"...It's fine…" The beast said as its gaze became a glare. The hallway was straight, after all, so in spite of his second vision the situation had become one where his ability to see them…

Meant they could see him.

The beast moved to his side and dropped into a similar stance it had adopted before. "Feel free to help as much as you want."

"Null IX and Mew V have escaped!"

Five guards, and their pokeballs were already set to open.


End file.
